The Czechs resist -Smoking ban

Irish Minister of Health James Reilly has an extraordinarily personal motivation for his mission. First, his father, who went blind after a heart attack, lay bedridden for years before he died. Then, his brother, a doctor who had tried in vain for years to stop smoking, died recently of lung cancer. “This is not a bad habit; it’s an insidious disease, and what is propagating it must be fought,” is what Reilly tells reporters. It’s the same argument he used, last spring, to persuade all of Ireland to introduce plain packaging illustrated with up-close photos of lungs ravaged by smoking for all cigarette “brands” – the second country in the world after Australia to do so.
Reilly and his government colleagues made the fight against tobacco a central theme of their recently-concluded six-month presidency of the EU [which ended June 30]. The result has been extraordinary. European health ministers decided in June that a regulation similar to Ireland’s should be in force across Europe within three years. New legislation must now be ratified by the European Parliament.

Tip of the iceberg

At the same time, experts are well aware that the last body that would want to roll it back is one of the most obscure and powerful forces in contemporary politics: the tobacco lobby.
“Everyone except the heads of delegations out of the room, please.” European diplomats recall Reilly uttering these previously-unheard words during the decisive moments of the Luxembourg talks about the “packaging” directive. But it is easy to understand why he said them: just before the hearing, it was discovered that someone was passing on the details of previous meetings directly to the tobacco companies. Many of those present during the debate recalled the investigation surrounding health commissioner John Dalli, who allegedly accepted money from the tobacco companies to alter the wording of EU legislation.
When Reilly got his way, the Brussels journal EUobserver likened it to a “David versus Goliath” victory, Goliath being the more than one hundred men and women, who, officially registered as lobbyists with an annual budget of 130 million crowns, work out of Brussels to ensure the tobacco business runs smoothly. And it is said they are the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the much larger army of pro-tobacco campaigners, which for many years has been extremely successful in getting close to European Commission politicians who have the most to do with the pertinent legislation.

This lobby naturally focuses on the governments of member states, who alone can give final ratification to the Brussels decision

This lobby naturally focuses on the governments of member states, who alone can give final ratification to the Brussels decision. When British scientists launched an extensive analysis of recent changes in European health care last year, they chose the Czech Republic for a case study of a country exposed to the influence of the tobacco lobby. “These small states are particularly vulnerable,” explains Helen Ross, executive director of the American Cancer Society (ACS) and one of the authors of the study, from New York. “In the US, we uncovered a well-thought-out strategy that the tobacco company has deployed for many years to precisely target those smaller states. Gaining influence there is easier, and yet when it comes to an EU vote, they have the same weight as the big states.”

Big business

The June hearing to review Reilly’s proposal on the tobacco directive ran into stiff resistance from the Czech delegation. It was the only one to proclaim a “no concession” policy, and delegates demanded only one thing: that the directive be struck down. Thanks only to the fact that the vote took place under the Lisbon Treaty, the sole Czech “nay” lacked the power of veto to quash the whole project.
Does an explanation lie in the furious lobbying of the tobacco companies in their own defence, as Helen Ross claims? If so, what exact form does such lobbying take? The British researchers themselves lack the answers to similar concrete questions. Ross, however, did spend several weeks in Prague last year, meeting with about a dozen politicians, officials and representatives of the tobacco companies. The result of her work is worthy of attention: “The official representatives of the Czech Republic speak exactly the way that proves convenient to the tobacco producers: they roll out their standard arguments and refuse any change,” Ross concludes. “Their influence is readily apparent.”
Just like elsewhere in Europe, tobacco is big business in the Czech Republic. The Kutnohorská firm of Philip Morris alone, which has roughly 40 per cent of the market – the remainder being carved up among global brands such as British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, and Japan Tobacco – reports net profits of two and a half billion crowns every year. At first glance, it may not seem much, considering state energy company CEZ rakes in the same amount every three weeks. Tobacco, however, means roughly fifty billion crowns in recoverable taxes, which account for about 77 percent of the package price.